Aiding or shaming in climate politics: Evidence from a survey experiment in Brazil

Emerging economies face substantial pressure from some other countries to reform their climate policies and practices. Few countries have faced greater foreign criticism than Brazil. What are the effects of these foreign interventions on Brazilian citizens’ climate policy opinions? In a preregistered survey experiment, the effects of prompts about foreign aid and international shame from prominent actors on citizens’ attitudes toward various climate policies are examined. The results show Brazilians perceive climate aid as fairer than international shaming, but neither intervention shifts average policy support much, except shaming only marginally reduces support for a carbon tax. Effects emerge, however, when disaggregating by respondents’ prior environmental attitudes: foreign aid increases support for several policies among environmentally conscious citizens while decreasing it among those with weaker environmental attitudes, a polarizing pattern shaming also produces, though more modestly and for fewer policies. The results show that well intended foreign aid, as an alternative to shame, is not universally well received. Moreover, the results show clear differences in treatment effects between policies by environmental attitudes. The study overall finds foreign interventions are not straightforward in growing pro-climate policy coalitions in Global South democracies.